Month: July 2013

The Conservative party chair Grant Shapps gave a speech at Policy Exchange today.

The speech itself is hilariously bad, but in the Q&A that followed, Shapps said:

And I’ll just give you one simple example: I started a printing company 23 years ago, it still runs to this day and we have always sat there and wondered how it is that when you know that somebody is not working out right for the company, like you know just not fitting into that role, you have to effectively end up coming up with less than… sort of disingenuous reasons why you need to change that role. I think you have to say ‘that role itself is now redundant’ and reengineer the way that that department operates.

Or you have to say, that person is so bad at their job that you must fire them and it’s disciplinary and it will go on, carry on when they try and get a job somewhere else. That means there are only two ways of dealing with wanting to bring a contract to an end. You will either have to pretend the role has gone or you have to fire the person.

In other words, he admits he had to conjure up ‘disingenuous reasons’ to fire an employee?

That is breaking the law isn’t it?

Ian Murray MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Minister, has just sent out a statement saying:

The Government should be making it easier to hire people, not easier to fire people – but now the Tory Chairman is raising serious questions about his own record as an employer. He needs to come clean and clarify exactly what he meant by these comments.

If the only solution the Tories have for sorting out their economic mess is illegally firing workers it’s no wonder people think they’re out of touch.

Grant Shapps’s revelation is gob-smacking.

He should clarify whether he sacked the person for ‘disingenuous reasons’ or whether he lied to his audience today.

Back in the eighties, Lloyd Cole only released three albums, then with The Commotions and has since released ten solo albums, none of which come close to those early classics. The latest of the solo efforts is just out and called ‘Standards’ and it does start to close that gap; moving away from Americana to a great degree and adding more electric guitar. The voice remains the voice of course and all up an album worth getting to know a little better. Here’s your starter for ten.

War Games. The biggest, most brutal challenge in the history of professional wrestling entertainment; a trial of endurance that knows no end. I did it though. I knuckled down, summoned ever last shred of grit I had in my being… and watched all three discs of this collection of WCW’s mass cage battles.

I actually think I came out the other side a changed person. Maybe my eyes focus a little further beyond the horizon now, and maybe I can’t look at a chain link fence without feeling like I’d like to maybe watch some golf, an infomercial about hair loss or a nice daytime women’s chat show. One in which the participants really get to the bottom of what men do that annoys them, for at least half an hour.

Don’t get me wrong; there were moments when it was apparent why this was one of WCW’s big draw events in its early days, and it goes without saying that a TV wrestling show will always push the envelope and stage the spectacular squared.

But even if the War Games premise wasn’t as ridiculous as it is, it’s an even more ridiculous idea to watch fourteen of these matches in a row. Just as a match relies on some quieter, slower moments to paint some shadow around the light, a show needs a range of events unfolding within it.

There are two sides to the physical environment of War Games. One is the mirage of the mystery of the legend, which the downright batshit wrestling legend Dusty Rhodes ably weaves into his interview about his invention of the special ring.

Pumped from a viewing of ‘Beyond Thunderdrome’, Dusty was inspired to create a highly-charged, gladiatorial event where the bold warriors do brutal battle. And this is where the second side to War Games becomes apparent, as the interview is cut with footage of someone else, somewhere else, welding something that isn’t a wrestling ring to something else that isn’t a wrestling ring. Dusty definitely, positively did not just push two rings together. This ultra-hardcore bit of metal construction meant that the aforementioned bold warriors have to clamber between two sets of ropes in the middle to get from one side to the other, making it only marginally less awkward to stage a match using those weird stairs that go nowhere from the set of Fawlty Towers.

So. The two teams enter one by one, as a made-up coin toss determines which entrant goes in next. Once they’re all in there someone will get knocked unconscious or submit (no pinfalls), and the other team will win – and this is where it gets really stupid. It’s quite hard to spot a man who is lying down even more lyingly than all the other men who are lying down at that time, or another man’s hand tapping from underneath the body of another man who is lying down. Then why not put this ginormous clusterfuck behind a chain link fence, and only film it from outside, so it looks like eight uncles having a fight in a zipped-up wedding marquee? Every year or so, extra levels are added, much like Fred West put in extensions.

This box set would be invaluable for anyone who seeks to learn about the evolution of camera work in wrestling, as each successive match is filmed with wisdom gleaned from the previous one. The cameras start to move inside the cage, show more action outside it, and actually move around. There is an beautifully daft promo from the Fabulous Freebirds, who use the not-so-muscular phrase ‘silly talk’ while they chew on each other’s faces and bellow.

I haven’t mentioned names, but largely it’s because the ridiculous setup is the star of the War Games show. There are moments where the skill of the usual WCW favourites shines through the gimmickery, and it’s amusing to watch Ric Flair’s tenyear transformation into a weatherworn Native American Lady Di lookalike. One startling detail is the omission of the omission of Christ Benoit in the 1997 Fall Brawl.

He doesn’t fit into the brand guidelines of any commercial entertainment product, to put it mildly, but if he has accidentally or sneakily slipped in it is a shameful pleasure to witness a rare glimpse of him at work here, before the others all troop in and start pissing about again. It makes you wish that the WWE would just superimpose a yawning puppy’s head over his face so that we can enjoy his legacy, guilt-free, into the future.

Whether or not you’d enjoy this box set really depends what kind of person you are. If you think having the one mid-price sports car isn’t as cool as a top-of-the-range one, so you’ve bought two of the former and welded them together – this is for you.

Ditto if you favour a huge but mediocre Sunday roast for every meal of your life. But so note: by the end of the box set, even Dusty’s saying it’s a bit bollocks.

A foul-mouthed thug who racially insulted two muslim women in headdresses in Chesterfield town centre has been ordered to pay £1,000 in compensation.

Chesterfield magistrates’ court heard how former Navy serviceman Mark Carr, 41, of Holme Road, Chesterfield, had been drinking at The British Legion and The Victoria pub before unleashing racist abuse at the women, on Cavendish Street.

Prosecuting solicitor Becky Mahon said one of the women had children in a double buggy and said she saw a male who appeared drunk and he was with a second male and the defendant swore.

Miss Mahon told how the woman said she heard the words ‘f*** off, muslim b*****d’ and the defendant was waving his hands and her children were crying and scared.

A second woman heard the words “fuck off back to your own country”, according to Ms Mahon, and a witness saw the women crying. Carr pleaded guilty to using ‘racially aggravated threatening behaviour’ and ‘causing racially aggravated distress’ – admitting he had strong opinions about Muslims not fitting in.

Funny choice of words isn’t it?

I’m sure I heard something similar like that recently, emblazoned on a van by the Home Office.

I’m sure it’s a coincidence that ‘go back‘ and ‘go home‘ are also used by racists when abusing minorities.

Remember Razorlight? The NME hyped them what out of proportion then promptly chopped them off at the knees. I actually quite liked them, but Johnny Borrell was always too much of a twat to gain anything but disregard. Well guess what, he’s now released a solo album, with the imaginative title of ‘Borrell 1′. That is disturbing as it suggests there are more to come, for it’s a crock of regurgitated limp indie, with what I can only describe as a calypso feel. Dreadful stuff and Bummer Album of the Week.

“Pyro-circus dub rave massive” Slamboree are fresh from doing their explosive thing at Kendal Calling over the weekend, and their new, Beans on Toast-featuring single “Death of a Festival” comes as a compelling reminder of just how vital and life-affirming these occasions can be. If, like us, you struggle to face the rest of the

Self Styled mathematical north London pop band Cosines released their limited edition 7” vinyl debut single (300 copies) ‘Hey Sailor Boy!’ in May and now they’ve kindly given us the video’s video premiere!

Hey Sailor Boy! is a love song from one girl pirate to her sailor boy. Originally written by Alice for ﬁctional band The Girl Pirates (who’s extended membership included unwittingly comedian David Cross and Decemberists singer Colin Meloy), the band never got much further than one drunken rum soaked practice before “Hey Sailor Boy!” was packed away.

The song took on a new lease of life with Cosines, with a stomping piano riff, soulful beat and sweet strings(arranged and performed by Elefant Record’s A Little Orchestra); comparisons could be made to the classic pop of Camera Obscura, The Beach Boys, The Concretes and The Magnetic Fields.

The band played their ﬁrst show in April 2012, and since then have played shows with Comet Gain, Shrag and Still Flyin’ as well the Indietracks Festival. The band are currently working on a debut album and consequently doing less DIY.

You may recognise Cosines from such other bands as Arthur and Martha, Vermont, The Loves, Brother Francisco, Pocketbooks, The Duloks and One Fathom Down.
Tour dates: